Losing weight and dieting can be very confusing. Everyone thinks they know what they’re talking about, friends, family, and work colleagues want to offer you dieting advice. Even these so-called “experts” like to make things more confusing, by constantly offering contrasting information and promising the world and more if you take their special supplement, or buy their diet book and follow their crazy diet. In this article I’m going to save you from all the confusion and miss information, and offer you some unbiased fact-based diet, that’s simple to follow and maintain for the rest of your life.
The main thing two things to consider when choosing a diet are is this something I can maintain for the long term and is this healthy i.e am I eating a varied diet with sufficient vitamins, minerals, and fiber to sustain good health, and through Testogen, I’m also maintaining the estrogen levels in my body. . If the answer is no to either of these, do not choose this diet.
Another warning sign that should send alarm bells ringing is diets that completely exclude a food group or an entire macronutrient. Low-fat diets, high fat no-carb diets, high carb low protein diets, I’ve seen and heard them all and so have you probably, do they work? Yes, in the sense that you will lose weight, but mainly because you are excluding an entire macronutrient out of your diet, thus making them very unhealthy and not something you would want to sustain for a long period of time.
Now we have covered what not to do when dieting, let’s get to methods that do work. Let me introduce you to what I like to call “flexible dieting”. In this style of dieting, you first start off by finding out how many calories you need to consume to slowly lose weight at a gradual pace (0.5-1kg per week), this number is different for everyone and will require some trial and error, factors such as gender, body weight, activity level, and metabolic rate can determine how many calories a day you need to consume. As a good starting point, multiply your body weight in kilograms by 38 to find the number of calories you will likely lose weight slowly on.
Now you have a starting point for the number of calories you need, you can now start to choose the types of foods you would like to eat, you can really eat anything, as long as what you consume doesn’t put you over your calorie allowance for the day. However this doesn’t mean you can eat junk all day, I still strongly recommend that people fill their calories with healthy unprocessed foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and healthy sources of fats such as nuts and seeds, I also recommend you aim to consume at least 30 grams of fiber a day to maintain good health, this can easily be done by consuming a variety of whole-grain foods in your diet. However with all that said, this method of dieting is called “flexible dieting” for a reason, you can still fit in treats such as biscuits or cakes into your calories for the day and still lose weight and achieve your dieting goals.
I know counting calories every day isn’t for everyone, so what I advise to people that would prefer not to count calories every day is to count them just 1 day of the week, this is so you get a good idea of how many calories are in the foods you are eating and then you can use this information you gained when counting to estimate with good accuracy the calories in the food you eat on the other 6 days of the week, so you get roughly within you calorie goals for the day.
I know of many people that have had success with both styles of flexible dieting. With both methods you will need to monitor your body weight to ensure you are losing weight at the right pace, I recommend people aim for 0.5kg to 1kg weight loss per week depending on their current body fat levels, the leaner you are, the less I recommend you lose per week. This flexible dieting can also be used to maintain your body weight, simply find the number of calories that allows you to maintain your body weight and then monitor your body weight regularly to ensure you not losing or gaining weight.
